In recent years, disposable diapers have been widely used for the nursing care of babies as well as bedfast old people and patients. This disposable diaper is roughly classified into the flat-type one that requires a diaper cover and that has a rectangular flat plate-like shape and the pants-type one that does not require a diaper cover. These diapers basically have a trilaminar structure in which an absorbent body is provided between an outer face sheet, whose outer face of a liquid-impermeable sheet is adhered with a nonwoven fabric, and an inner face sheet consisting of a liquid-permeable sheet. The absorbent body is structured so that an absorbent element obtained by mixing flocculation pulp with super absorbent polymer is filled into a liquid-permeable storage bag consisting of a nonwoven fabric sheet. When the absorbent body is used in a disposable diaper, urine or highly-flowable stool is absorbed by the super absorbent polymer and swells, thus allowing the urine or stool to be accepted and retained in the absorbent body.
The above absorbent body is formed, for the purpose of accepting and retaining a large amount of urine and stool as much as possible, by preparing an absorbent body base with a slightly large amount of the absorbent element filled in a storage bag, and sending this absorbent body base through a pair of press rollers having flat pressing faces so that this absorbent body base is pressed flat, thereby providing the absorbent body having a predetermined thin thickness. The reason why the absorbent body is formed to have such a thin thickness is for the purpose of improving the wearing feeling of a disposable diaper when the disposable diaper is worn by a user and for improving the binding power between pulp and super absorbent polymer in the absorbent element to provide strength, by which the disposable diaper can be prevented from losing its shape when the disposable diaper absorbs urine and stool.
On the other hand, another diaper absorbent body other than the above one has been suggested in which an absorbent body base includes a plurality of straight embossed patterns that are inclined toward the center so that a plurality of pattern rows are arranged in the longitudinal direction of a rectangle shape (see Patent Reference 1 for example).
Patent Reference 1: Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 5-300922